Christie Devon

I am currently on secondment, with the hope of the position being made permanent, as a support worker educator. The main part of my role is to ensure that I provide the required training for therapy support staff across three sites. I am also involved in the recruitment of staff, provide supervision and mentoring, complete direct observations of practice. I am involved in many projects that are going on locally and regionally to ensure the voice of the support worker is heard.

The role was developed to ensure that the support workers feel they have someone that is supporting them and with the right training and competencies, they will deliver better patient care.

I started my career in the department as the secretary for the professional leads (OT & PT). I had always worked in an admin role since I left school (many years ago!) and did not know that the role of the support worker existed.

The role appealed to me because I thought it would be more rewarding and give me a sense of better job satisfaction. Being able to help someone back to a form of independence following illness gave me a real sense of achievement.

I take every training and development opportunity I can, I have completed my NVQ III which has helped me progress to a band 4 Therapy Assistant Practitioner. I have attended courses at the Douglas Bader centre, Roehampton, which focused on the rehabilitation of amputee patients which helped me in my support worker role in amputee outpatient. I have also attended ‘world COPD day’ which gave me a better understanding of the condition which in turn helped me with my role in pulmonary rehab. I have also found the CSP support worker webinars very useful in understanding the support workers scope of practice, delegation and accountability.

I am passionate about the role of the support worker and I am most proud of that with in my role I am making sure that the support workers are thought about in every aspect of development within the department. The support workers have also said that they are very grateful to have me in the post and they feel like they have someone on their side.

It’s a very exciting time to be a support worker at present, historically support workers have felt much undervalued but with the changes that are coming things are going to very different. There is so much more opportunity for you now to develop your career – the sky’s the limit!

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